Site requirements

What we check

Once a domain is verified, we measure three things and compare them to the same three thresholds for everybody. There are no different numbers for larger accounts.

Authority Score, minimum 25. How much weight the domain carries, based on its backlink profile.

Monthly organic traffic worldwide, minimum 2,500. Real search visibility, measured rather than self-reported.

Spam Score, maximum 35. How suspicious the backlink profile looks. Lower is better here.

A site has to clear all three. Strength in one does not buy a pass on another, and that is deliberate: a domain with high authority and no traffic is usually a domain built to sell links, which is exactly what we are trying to keep out.

About Authority Score

We call it Authority Score, not DR, because it is not DR, and putting a familiar name on a different number would mislead you.

It comes from DataForSEO and runs on a more compressed scale than the metric you may know from other tools. As a rough guide it lands around 60 to 70 percent of DR. A site you think of as DR 60 usually shows here around 40.

If your number looks lower than expected, that is the scale rather than a mistake, and not your site being judged harshly. Everyone is measured the same way.

We measure, we do not ask

You do not enter these numbers and you cannot edit them. On most platforms of this kind the metrics are typed in by whoever is trying to sell you the link.

Updating your numbers

The first measurement happens on its own, right after your domain is verified. That is the measurement that decides whether your site gets listed, and it costs you nothing.

After that, re-measuring is a premium feature. The free plan does not include it. Premium includes 50 per month.

We would rather say this plainly than let you wait for something that is not going to happen: on the free plan, a site that fell short of a threshold will not be re-measured, and it stays unlisted even if the site itself improves.

Premium is not on sale yet. While that is the case, a site below the thresholds stays below them, and the honest answer is that there is no way around it today.

This is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. A directory that quietly lets sites drift back in is a directory that stops being worth searching, and that is the whole reason this one exists.

If your site does not qualify

It is not a rejection of you, and your account keeps working.

Once your account is approved you can browse the directory, send match requests, and hold conversations, whether or not you own a listed site. The one thing that does not happen is your own site appearing in other members' search results, because there is no listed site to show.

Two things to know:

Some members set requirements on who may contact them, and a few of those requirements look at the sites you own. If a member has set those, a request from an account with no sites will be declined automatically.

Approval is the gate that matters, and it judges you rather than your site. Your site is already judged by the thresholds, which are the same for everyone.

You can also verify a different site. Many members run several, and the one that qualifies is not always the first one they think of. That is the realistic move if your current site is short: a second site that clears the bar today beats waiting on one that might clear it later.

If you work for an agency

The thresholds apply to client sites the same way they apply to everything else.

The reason is the shape of the exchange rather than any rule about agencies. Collaborations here are reciprocal: somebody who wants twenty links needs to be able to offer twenty back. A site that cannot host a placement worth having is not a site you can trade with.

In practice the site you verify should be a client site that can genuinely host a link, rather than your own agency showcase page, which usually carries very little authority.

When a site belongs to a client you say so when you add it. Other members then see they are dealing with your agency. The client's name is never shown.

Why the bar is where it is

The thresholds were calibrated against a real sample of domains, including plenty that would be turned away on sight. There is a wide, empty gap in that data between sites worth working with and sites built to sell links, and the thresholds sit inside that gap.

They are strict, and they exclude some legitimate sites, particularly non-English ones and narrow verticals. That is a deliberate trade. A directory that lets everything in is the thing we built this to replace.